Midoriya Collection 17 (Patreon)

Midoriya Collection

Chapter 17: It Starts With As All Things Start…

-VB-

4 months until Bakugo Katsuki enters UA.

“This is … a sad sight.”

Izuku couldn’t help but agree with that statement. He and All Might, standing next to him as Toshinori Yagi, stared down upon the Dagoba Beach from the ramparts. 

The beach in question laid, tainted by grease, trash, and abuse. How else was he supposed to describe what could be the central tourist attraction of the entire city that lay in ruins with appliance trash, food trash, plastic trash, and all other sorts of trash littering the beach? 

The pragmatic side of him, one he was sure Alexandria’s power had influenced, told him of the sheer fuck up’s the cities top leadership had to be. While the beach was not a literal gold mine, it could still generate significant revenue if the city just cleaned it up. Hell, Izuku could think of two ways to generate the revenue right now right here. From what he saw down there on the beach, there was a significant amount of metal trash, and metal could be recycled for parts or raw minerals. Two, prisoners - instead of being sent to prison to suck up resources - could be used to work on cleaning the bitch, thus making revenue by decreasing unnecessary spending. 

He stopped and sighed. Alexandria’s power was really good, making connections and logically looking at every little thing, but it sometimes forgot that people didn’t like the idea of forcing prisoners to work (even though it happened without the public looking) and that people were lazy. 

“Your quirks?” All Might asked sympathetically, and though only two words were said, they’d spent enough time around each other to know that Izuku had issues with his power. 

“Yes, Yagi-sensei,” he replied back easily. Izuku knew that he was technically All Might’s new sidekick, but All Might tried his best to help and teach him, so that made him a teacher regardless of their current relationship. “Just observing how wasteful all of this is.” 

-VB-

Izuku didn’t smile as much anymore, Yagi noted. When he first met the boy, it had been under strenuous and stressful circumstances so it didn’t count, but the few encounters after that did imprint a hyperactive and yet optimistic boy. 

Izuku’s Quirks had done a number on him. It was so hard to tell without having been around him, but now that he kept the boy as his sidekick, it was so easy to see. 

“So.”

Izuku looked up to him.

“I think we should clean this place! It will brighten the lives of the people!” Yagi said confidently. 

Izuku stared at him for a few moments, and Yagi wondered if he was pushing it a bit. He knew that Izuku considered his part in investigative works to be a good work befitting a hero, and the boy - with the Quirks he called “Alexandria” and “Tattletale” - was too good at it. So good, in fact, that his own agency had no more investigative work to do.

Because the boy finished them all. 

Izuku grinned for the first time in a week, yet the dark bags underneath his eyes remained. 

What dreams plagued the boy to keep him awake so?

“... Midoriya-shounen.” The boy froze, because Yagi didn’t call the boy by his family name a lot these days and when he did it was for a good reason. “Are you having nightmares again?”

Izuku flinched. 

It’s been nine months since Izuku came underneath his wing as his sidekick, but it wasn’t until the seventh month - just two months ago - that Yagi learned about the truth about his Quirk.

“Izuku-shounen, what did you want to talk about?” Yagi asked in the privacy of their office. Izuku looked … bad. He knew Midoriya Inko enough to know that there was no abuse happening in the Midoriya household. 

Could it be that he was pushing too much onto Izuku despite going over the workload Izuku has been getting? Was Izuku here to ask him to give him less work? 

Okay, perhaps he needed to hear the boy out first before he said anything.

“Uh… All Might-.”

“Call me by my name in private, Izuku-shounen. You’ve earned it.” Earned as both a sparring partner and a pro hero.

“I… I have something to tell you about my Quirk,” Izuku spoke up, looking to the side.

Yagi sat up, straightening his back and looking at Izuku in the eyes while the boy tried to avoid his. This was something he had been wanting to know a lot about, but have been unable to learn about from Izuku himself. Like always when he was reminded of Izuku’s Quirk,  he was reminded of the hospital incident where Izuku’s Quirk took over and made the boy do medically unspeakable things to himself. 

‘Tinkertech,’ the boy called his creations. Wonderful on the surface but the things Izuku spoke of in passing unknowingly made Yagi shiver in horror. 

“Go on,” he encouraged Izuku gently. 

“... I-I gain my Quirks through dreams.”

“...?!” Yagi felt his mouth open and jaw drop but no sound came out. He deliberately kept himself from responding yet. 

Yet.

“I-I meet people who held my powers before.”

He … met people in his dreams. Izuku said “meet,” not “see.” Was he interacting … with dead people? (Ghosts?!)

Also, Izuku was using the word ‘powers’ to describe his Quirks. Why? Izuku was a really good Quirk analyst, and the boy received a hell lot of requests from heroes and other Quirk professionals on how they could improve themselves. It would be no surprise if Izuku turned out to be the best Quirk analyst within Japan. This only made the question of Izuku’s wording even more intense. 

“What kind of people?”

Izuku wouldn’t lie to him… but the fact that Izuku came spilling “the truth” made it certain that Izuku had been omitting a significant detail(s) about his Quirk.

“All kinds of people. The names of the powers I use are the names the people used with their powers.”

Yagi blinked. “So Bonesaw was…”

“A villain.”

A chill ran down Yagi’s spine.

“A villain…?”

“Someone responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands. A flesh crafter. A plague maker.”

Those words made Yagi’s stomach churn. He knew of Izuku’s surface level abilities with the “Bonesaw” qu-power, and those abilities made it already one of the most dangerous and versatile powers, even if the things he made couldn’t be mass produced. 

But never had Izuku talked about plagues before.

“Alexandria was a great hero,” Izuku continued. “She … she was with me for years. When …. When I thought that I couldn’t do anything with my Quirk that only had a woman talking to me, she talked to me. Guided me. Encouraged me.” 

“And Tattletale?” 

Along with Bonesaw and Alexandria, Tattletale was the power that Izuku used the most. Coupled with his own analytic mind, it made Izuku a mental powerhouse. 

“A teenager forced into villainy by circumstance.”

“... I see. And the fourth?”

The boy had gained another power two weeks ago. Was this the catalyst for why he was opening up to him? 

“It… It’s the ninth.”

“... Ninth?” Yagi blinked.

“T-There are a lot of villains that come to me. T-They like to p-play games.”

Yagi grimaced. There was no need for Izuku say anymore, but he wouldn’t stop the boy. 

“I see. This doesn’t change anything though, does it?”

Izuku looked up, a little surprised but also not. Yagi would bet his kidneys that Izuku knew exactly how he might respond because of his powers. 

“But … but I lied.”

“No, you didn’t speak of things that might make people misunderstand you. I suppose that even I would have … biases if I learned of this beforehand. I understand, Izuku. I have my own secrets.”

Izuku didn’t say anything. 

“I was Quirkless.”

And that statement had led to Izuku looking like the teenage boy he was, awed, amazed, and entertained instead of looking like he was bearing the weight of the world. Yagi had known that Izuku would not be the successor to the One for All, but he would be his future successor’s ally. It made Izuku trust him more, and he in turn trusted Izuku more. 

“Yes, I got someone new and they’re very violent,” Izuku sighed. “I can handle it, though.”

“If you need help....”

“I will.”

“Good. Let’s do some community service then!”